The Day That I Died
by HappyLeifEricsonDay
Summary: Prologue to the series. This is the story of what happened that day in his parents lab, and how the astonishing events that followed solidified a lifelong friendship between three hapless teens. (Currently in progress.)
1. The Accident

Okay so I always wondered what the accident and the first couple weeks before the first episode would have been like. How it affected their friendship and everything. I haven't ever seen a satisfying fic about it so I decided to write one! Enjoy.

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**Chapter One: The Accident**

x - x - x

Danny hadn't been planning on dying that day.

He hadn't meant for _anything_ to happen. Really. He hadn't even meant to be in there at all.

In fact, he'd been surprised that Tucker and Sam were so interested in the Ghost Portal his parents had just finished, even though it hadn't worked as planned and they'd retired back to the drawing board.

His friends both had their hands clasped together when they begged him during passing period that day, puffing out their bottom lips like twins. How could he say no to them? After all, Sam and Tuck were.. well they were his only real friends, as much as he cringed every time that thought arose. He'd been sure that moving on to high school would mean an opportunity for a fresh beginning, to meet new people. But only a month into freshman year and he'd already been targeted by the jocks for abuse, already singled out as a freak. He was one-hundred-and-ten percent sure it was because he'd let his parents drive him to school for the first two weeks. Worst mistake ever. He didn't think anyone at Casper high would ever see him as anyone but the kid from the family of 'ghost-hunting whack jobs'–as Dash had so succinctly put it.

So when Tuck and Sam actually seemed _interested_ in his parents' latest psycho-experiment, he couldn't help grabbing at that like a lifeline.

He'd never taken them, or any friend, into the lab before. Danny wasn't supposed to be down there without explicit permission (which was more often than not given as 'mandatory permission' as his Mom called it, which meant he had to clean up some nasty ectoplasmic mess his dad made).

Danny tried to explain what some of the stranger inventions were supposed to do, emphasizing the fact that most of them didn't work. That didn't seem to matter to his friends though; they examined everything with rapt curiosity.

The portal itself loomed on the far side of the room. The yellow/black striped doors were secured, fixed to the wall with a massive circular metal band, held in place with a dozen bolts the size of his fist.

"This is _way_ cooler than you made it sound, Danny!" Sam exclaimed as he triggered the opening sequence from the main computer. There was the screeching sound of metal on metal as the doors wrenched apart. He wasn't worried about anyone hearing. He'd only felt secure in bringing them down here because his parents were away at a conference ("A GHOST conference!" his dad had exclaimed every time Danny only said "conference") and Jazz was at school tutoring for extra credit. Of course, only Jazz wanted extra credit when she already had straight A's.

"Wait till you see what it looks like turned on," he said with a wry smile. He was glad they were enjoying this. He had toned it down a bit in his description to them earlier, but if he was being honest with himself he found the Fenton portal beyond cool.

"I thought you said it didn't turn on?" Tucker asked, frowning.

"Well, it tries," Danny explained shrugging. "It's like when you try to start a car and the ignition just keeps turning over but the engine never starts. Just watch." He activated startup sequence and a creepy greenish glow appeared deep within the wide opening of the portal. It spun around and out from the center back wall, glowing eerily, casting long shadows across the lab. But once it reached a certain point the spiraling whirlpool seemed to weaken, and shrunk back down to nothing. If he left it on indefinitely it would just repeat this process, like a gross ectoplasmic flower blooming and dying over and over.

"Holy cow that thing is _sick,"_ Sam said. The portal light made her eyes appear bright green.

"Yeah Danny," Tuck chimed. "Your parents might be a little nuts, but I don't care what anyone says. This is one cool invention! Even if it doesn't work."

Danny stopped the sequence, allowing the ectoplasm to spiral away and dwindle to nothing. Later on he would marvel at his own stupidity in that moment. How he had _stopped the sequence_ but he had _not_ cut the power. "They're already back at the drawing board," Danny remarked, "so I wouldn't be surprised if they do get it working one day." _Because that's just what I need to make me fit in at school,_ he thought. _A portal in my basement that leads to an ectoplasmic plane where ghosts exist._

"You ever been inside this thing?" Tucker asked, peering from the edge into the dark empty chamber.

"No," Danny admitted. "They always said it was too dangerous- ha, like having a _functioning _portal to a terrifying ghost dimension in our basement is so much safer."

"Yeah… I don't really follow their logic," Sam smirked. "But then again, _my_ parents think listening to heavy metal is the most dangerous thing a person can do."

"You uh, you wanna check it out?" Tuck asked, raising his eyebrows and nudged Danny in the side.

Danny's gut reaction was _bad idea._ "I don't know, Tuck, my parents would be really pissed if they found out. Besides, you can't go in without-"

"What's this?" Danny turned around to see Sam was looking through one of the tall cabinets. She was holding a thin white jumpsuit, trimmed black, on a hanger. "Is this a _jumpsuit?"_

"Uh.."

"Your parents sure do have style," Tucker sniggered into his hand.

"It's one of their ecto-protection jumpsuits. They're supposed to specially conduct ectoplasmic energy to protect from small amounts of exposure, so my parents could safely work inside the portal while they were constructing."

"This doesn't look like Jack or Maddie's size," Sam said, examining the tag. "Hey, it says 'Danny' right here on the tag!"

"Really?" Danny was surprised. He didn't know his parents had made him one.

Tucker burst out laughing. "Oh man!" he said, wiping a fake-tear from his eye. "Looks like your parents wanna shape you in their image! Can you picture Danny running around at school trussed up like his dad?" he asked Sam.

Danny shuddered at the thought. "Yeah… never, ever going to happen," he assured them. The mental image made him gag.

"Danny," Sam said, suddenly shoving the jumpsuit into his arms. "You gotta put it on."

"What?" he said incredulously.

"You gotta check out the inside of that portal! Think about it, this might be your only chance to check it out before your parents scrap it for parts, or break it more thoroughly."

When he didn't immediately grab it, she pressed the suit against his chest more earnestly. He took it uncertainly. He glanced at Tuck, who just shrugged noncommittally in response. "I don't know, Sam," he said slowly.

"Come on, Danny. Aren't you curious?"

He gave the dark cylindrical hole a sidelong glance. He thought about the fantastic ectoplasmic swirls, generated by the powerful engines installed inside. Even now that it was dark, the empty portal seemed so ominous, so mysterious, so full of potential. He had to admit, the Ghost Portal had his curiosity piqued. Would his parents really get it running one day? Maybe they would take him there. They'd be like pioneers to another dimension, he'd be a Neil Armstrong of sorts. _Way_ cool. He tried to envision what it'd be like to visit another plane of existence. But the only image he saw in his mind was that swirling, swirling green light.

"Uh… dude?"

Danny blinked. Tucker was waving his hand in front of Danny's face.

"I _am _curious," he said belatedly.

"So come on!" Sam urged. "At least one of us should get to see it from the inside."

And that was how Danny found himself pulling the white jumpsuit over his jeans, strapping on the thick-soled black boots, clicking on the dark belt that controlled the ectoconductivity to the rest of the suit. "This is so wrong," he added, staring down at the image of his father's smiling face plastered on his chest.

"Allow me," Sam laughed, ripping off the accessory. "You cannot go walking around with that on your chest."

Tucker snickered as Danny finished pulling on the black gloves. "You're a real looker, Danny. Sam wait, didn't you bring your camera?"

"Oh shut it, Foley. I do not want a-"

"Smile!"

Danny looked up and just had time to notice the camera before Sam had already snapped a picture of him standing next to the open portal. The Polaroid slid out of her old fashioned camera, the kind he'd never seen anyone carry but Sam. _Oh great, evidence._ She'd better not leave that picture lying around for his parents to find. Tucker bent over the photograph, laughing as the image began to show up.

"You guys done?" Danny said dryly.

"Yeah yeah," Sam said, stowing her camera. "Now go on!"

Danny turned uncertainly to the yawning entrance. As he stepped boldly across the threshold he felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. The air felt almost alive with electricity, the way the night air does when there's thunder overhead. That's the way the portal was, even when it was off there was a slight ectoplasmic current coming from the engines, which was why the jumpsuit was necessary.

The rounded walls and floor were a matrix of cords and tubes weaving over and under each other, so Danny stepped cautiously. Six massive engines hummed softly, placed in a vertical circle about fifteen feet into the portal. Just beyond the engines was a solid metal wall, a dead end. He approached them, thinking about the bizarre glowing whirlpool that usually began in the very spot in the middle of all those engines. _Right about here,_ he thought, reaching his gloved hand forward slowly into the empty space as if he could touch that green spark. But of course it wasn't there. Right now the portal was dark.

_I wonder what kind of awesome, super cool things exist on the other side of this portal?_

"Find any ghosts?" Tucker joked, his voice echoing strangely down the tunnel.

Danny shot him a look over his shoulder that said _Very funny._

He turned his attention to the closest of the six evenly spaced engines, which was the one just beneath his feet. Bending down to examine it he noticed immediately that something was off. Even with the mess of cords and wires littering the floor it was painfully evident that two of the cables had been crossed incorrectly. The power cable was plugged into the connectivity jack that was supposed to wire and sync this engine to the other five, while the proper connective cable was instead plugged into the power jack. Danny would normally feel embarrassed to have this great an understanding of his parent's ghostly inventions, but honestly it was elementary electronics. His mother had shown him when they were building it. Leave it to his dad to mix up the cables, just because they had matching plugs. He chuckled lightly, before the realization dawned on him.

Wait. Hold the phone. Did this mean…

Was this possibly the only thing keeping the Ghost Portal from functioning properly? Could it be as simple as that? With sudden eagerness he yanked the cables from their mismatched places, and plugged them into their proper homes. All he was thinking was how excited his parents would be if they found out Danny had fixed the portal himself.

The first thing that happened was that the underlying electrical static in the air suddenly vanished. It was like when the rumbling AC unit is on so long you don't even hear it anymore until suddenly it clicks off, and there's this heavy, tangible silence. The air in the Fenton portal was suddenly and ominously silent. Danny stood abruptly, desperately hoping he hadn't just broken it. That would be _so typical._

And then, there was a faint _click, _and Danny Fenton died_._

At least, he felt like he was dying. It must have happened very quickly but to Danny it wasn't measurable in standard time.

A flash of green. There was enough time for his gaze to flit downward, finding the spot where he had seen that budding ectoplasmic flower so many times before. There was enough time for him to realize that he was _in_ _that spot, _just the spot where the whirlpool begins, where it was beginning now but this time _inside_ of his chest. The pain began in his heart and spread through his body with the ferocity of lightning. There was pain, unspeakable pain- each and every atom in his body was being ignited and extinguished at once. It blinded every one of his senses. His world consisted of molecule rending agony, and he had the irrational thought that he was inside of a supernova. He knew he was dying and stumbled forward through the brilliant light, unsure if his legs were really moving at all.

White gave way to green gave way to familiar dull grey laboratory flourescents, and suddenly the tidal wave of pain broke, leaving him feeling numb and cold, _so cold._ The heat in every molecule was replaced with ice. He looked up with great effort and saw with some surprise that he had somehow exited the portal. His ears were ringing. Tuck's mouth was moving, his hands clasped to his face in horror, but Danny didn't hear him speak. His own body pitched forward, breaking away like a glacier's edge, heavy as stone. He didn't see Sam lunge forward to catch him and never felt her touch, falling through her outstretched arms like he was made of mist.

But he was solid when he hit the floor, his head still ringing like the inside of a church bell. He felt Tucker's hands rolling him onto his back, felt them searching for a heartbeat on his neck. His friends were conversing frantically over his prone body, and between their hunched figures he saw a solid wall of swirling green where the empty portal should have been.

He probably imagined it, but he thought he saw a pair of yellow catlike eyes flash just beyond the portal wall right as he lost consciousness.

A heavy thud shook him awake, and his eyes shot open when he saw a stranger leaning over him.

"It's okay son, just breathe."

"Whhaa.." he tried to speak but found that it was impossibly difficult. His eyes flew around the ambulance interior frantically, and when they fell on Tucker and Sam at his right side his panic lessened by a few degrees.

"Danny just relax, you're okay," Tucker was saying, but he and Sam exchanged a meaningful glance at each other.

Danny looked over at the IV laying next to him.

"What the hell?" the EMT cursed to himself, as he inserted the IV into Danny's forearm. "The damn thing keeps falling out! I'm so sorry kid, I've had to reinsert it four times, I don't know how your arm keeps rejecting the thing the minute I turn my back…"

His vision went blurry again, and the world faded away.

When he came around again he was lying in a bed at the hospital.

"There he is. How are you feeling Daniel?"

He blinked and saw a doctor standing next to his bed, copying data from the monitor onto his clipboard.

Danny chose not to answer him. He didn't even have to look for Sam and Tucker. One was sitting in a chair on each side of his bed, each with one hand resting on his arms.

"How do you _think_ he's feeling?" Sam sneered.

"Don't worry Daniel," the doctor said warmly, ignoring Sam. "That was some accident you had, but your vitals are fine, and there's no major damage. You should likely be able to leave today. And your family will be here very soon, I'm sure that will help you feel better."

Danny didn't miss the look of panic exchanged between Tuck and Sam at the mention of his family. _What was that?_ Danny wondered, a small surge of alarm running through him.

And then something _odd_ happened. He felt himself suddenly become weightless, like that moment as you just come over the crest of a rollercoaster drop. Butterflies shot through his chest and he thought maybe he was about to pass out again, but then he actually began to _rise. _He was _actually_ weightless. However he only rose about an inch before Tucker and Sam's hands shot out and pressed his chest back down into the bed. Danny looked at them in alarm but they both had their eyes trained on the doctor, who hadn't noticed anything. His friends both shared the same look they had in class whenever they were passing notes, that '_He didn't see anything, right?'_ look. So Danny had to wonder, how many times had this happened while he'd been out of it?

"Those are some dedicated friends you've got there," the doctor added, still not looking up from his clipboard. "Threw a huge fit when we wouldn't let them back initially. We had to make a special exception." He shot an amused look at the two teens.

Tucker and Sam wouldn't abandon his side even when his family arrived, not even to let them hug him.

"He's still in shock," Tucker offered, blocking Jazz from touching Danny.

His parents were a mess, blaming themselves for not putting an encrypted password on the portal computer. They were also simultaneously ecstatic that the portal was actually _working,_ escpecially when Danny explained what he had done that had caused it to turn on.

"I knew our numbers were correct!" his mom was saying. "And I _told_ you to triple check all those plugs, Jack!"

His dad rubbed his neck sheepishly. "I thought I did."

While they were in the hospital room Danny went weightless five times, but Tuck and Sam had their hands firmly on his shoulders, keeping him grounded.

Later that night his parents finally left his side, leaving him to rest in his bed. They shot warning looks at Tucker and Sam, who had still refused to go home. Danny knew they didn't _blame_ his friends, but it didn't help that Tucker and Sam had been the ones to frantically call his parents away from the conference, that they'd been the ones there for the accident.

On the drive home, Danny had disappeared completely below the waist and fallen halfway through the seat before his friends had frantically pulled him back up by the arms.

"What _happened_ to me?" Danny whispered the second his parents had shut the door behind them.

Tucker threw his arms up defiantly. "Dude, we were going to ask you the same thing. You scared the hell out of us!"

"We thought you _died, _Danny!"

"Yeah, so did I," he muttered.

"No," Sam said. "I mean when you fell out of the portal… Danny you literally looked like a _ghost."_

"What do you mean?" he asked, as his arm disappeared and fell through his bed.

"I mean _that!"_ she exclaimed, wrenching him upright. "You fell through my arms," she said quietly. "You didn't have a heartbeat. I thought.."

"Dude," Tucker said, folding his arms. "You looked like a photonegative copy of yourself. Your hair was white, your suit was completely different, your eyes were _glowing!"_

"What?" Danny said incredulously. He practically fell out of bed, trying to get to the mirror on the wall. But he just saw his normal black hair, his regular sky blue irises.

"But when you blacked out, you just changed back," Tucker added. "There was this ring of light around your waist and it passed over you and you looked normal again, like it never happened."

"We thought we were hallucinating," Sam said. "Exposure to the 'ectoplasmic rays' or whatever, you know? But then in the ambulance your arm kept disappearing, and in the hospital-"

They were interrupted by Danny floating into the air without warning, and his friends had to yank him down from the ceiling.

"Guys," he said seriously, as they tried to keep him from floating away. "Am I... dead?"

His two friends stared at each other. "We don't know," they said in unison.

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**Next chapter: Transformation**

See you there, lovelies


	2. Transformation

**Chapter Two: Transformation**

x - x - x

His parents kept him out of school for a week after the accident. The doctor had been right, and there really wasn't any major damage (as far as his parents knew) but they insisted on keeping him home. Mom kept remarking on how he was paler than usual and extremely nervous and jumpy. They chalked it up to shock, and Danny let them think that was the only issue. "My poor baby!" she would mutter every time she thought he couldn't hear her. "Should've used a password…" Dad would mumble to himself.

The first day after the hospital was the hardest. He woke up in the morning underneath his bed. _That's not normal. _It was a Tuesday, and Tucker and Sam had gone to school. Unfortunately for Danny, his parents worked from home. He holed himself up in his room but he couldn't prevent them from checking on him, and every time they did he was terrified some part of his body would disappear in front of them. Consequentially, he spent almost the entire day tucked under his blanket. No wonder his parents thought he was suffering from severe shock.

But the worst part came early that first morning, when his mom and dad came in quietly, bringing a plate of pancakes.

"Danny," his mom began, "I know you've been through a terrible shock but we have to talk."

"Yeah, okay," Danny said, sitting up in bed.

Mom and Dad looked at each other, like they were deciding where to begin.

Mom started. "I know you probably wanted to explore the portal because it seemed cool, and exciting, and fun."

"Bunk that, it's the most exciting thing we've ever created!" Dad exclaimed.

"Jack, you're not helping," Mom scolded. Dad's expression fell. Danny could see he was still elated at the fact that the portal was actually working. "The portal is not something to be taken lightly, Danny," his mom said seriously. "Especially now that it's functional. The Ghost Portal is like a window that will let us see into the realm of ghosts, but we don't know everything about it yet. We don't know if they'll be able to look at us from the other side. Ghosts are _dangerous, _terrible creatures Danny. They are to be feared, and respected." She spat out the word 'ghosts' like it was a curse.

"Respect? I'll give them respect. I'll give it to 'em when they're a smoldering pile of ectoplasmic remains!"

"Not that kind of respect, Jack. I mean you have to respect them because they are powerful. We respect ghosts the way we respect cobras, or black widows."

"Why are you guys telling me all this?" Danny said faintly, interrupting his parent's small debate.

"Because we want you to be safe, son," Dad said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Ghosts will tear you limb from limb if you give them the chance, so we don't want you to do anything stupid like that again." Danny had the good grace to look apologetic. "But don't worry," Dad added. "If we ever catch _one whiff_ of a ghost we'll rip it apart molecule by molecule!"

"And study the bits and pieces," his mom added cheerily.

They must have noticed how terrified Danny looked, because Mom added with an extra touch of warmth, "Don't worry Danny. You're safe as long as we're around."

He wished he could believe them. As they left his room he pushed his pancakes aside, and felt that his whole world was collapsing around him.

When he was brushing his teeth in the bathroom around noon, he leaned in to examine his reflection. Was anything different? _Am I still me?_ As he stared into his own eyes they suddenly flashed green, and he was so startled that he almost swallowed his toothbrush.

Tucker and Sam arrived just thirty minutes after the end of 6th period. The three of them sat in a circle on Danny's bed, unsure what to say. "I'm not a ghost," Danny managed. "I've been checking my pulse all day... I'm breathing, I have a heartbeat. I don't understand. Besides, if I was dead I'm pretty sure the hospital would have noticed. So what is wrong with me?"

"The portal obviously did something to you," Tucker supplied.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Sam said sarcastically. "This is all my fault, Danny. I should have never told you to go in there!"

Danny shook his head fervently. "No it's not. I'm the one who put on the suit; nobody forced me to go in there. Besides, I'm the idiot who plugged it in and got it running while I was inside. And now by all accounts I'm slowly turning into a ghost, and as soon as my parents find that out they're going to grind me up into paste and examine it with a magnifying glass."

"Woah woah woah," Tucker said, "they're not going to find out anything. It'll be fine, Danny. Maybe it'll go away. Or like... stabilize or something."

_Metastasize, more like,_ he thought darkly. He didn't repeat the thought aloud.

Tucker and Sam stayed all evening. They convinced Danny to venture downstairs for dinner, which to him sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. Dinner was an awkward affair, to say the least. Jazz kept giving Sam and Tucker not-so-subtle glares.

"Will you cut it out, Jazz?" Danny snapped as Jazz passed the plate of garlic bread rather roughly to Tucker. "The accident wasn't their fault, it was mine!"

Jazz just gave Danny a sympathetic "poor thing" look like he was mentally unstable.

Danny remembered only too well what Jazz had said about Sam and Tucker at the end of the summer, just before Danny started high school.

_"I just don't want you to be disappointed, Danny." She had that pitying look in her eyes that she always got whenever she was trying to psychoanalyze him. It was infuriating._

_"I don't know why you would even say that," he shot back. "Tucker and Sam aren't like that."_

_"I'm not saying they are. But it happens to the best of friends, Danny. It's just something everyone goes through."_

_"Well it's not going to happen to us."_

_"Oh, Danny. When you're young everything seems so permanent. But as people grow up sometimes they grow apart whether they want to or not. It's very common for middle school friendships to fade as students move up into high school. You have different classes and you meet new people. I'm not saying it will happen, but I just want you to know it might."_

_He snapped sarcastically, "Yeah well thanks for the help, Jazz."_

_"I'm only telling you because I care-"_

_"Right. I never should have asked you for advice about high school."_

_He'd stormed out of her room, ignoring the hurt expression on her face. Served her right._

Remembering it now, a jolt of anger shot through Danny. He instantly regretted that because his hand vanished without warning, and his fork fell with a clatter onto the floor. He gasped and threw his hand behind his back before his family could see that his forearm ended in a stub.

So was that it? Was he going to keep disappearing every time he felt a strong emotion? That was great. Just swell.

Everyone was staring at him in concern. Danny shoved his chair out and got up, careful to keep his arm hidden behind his back. "I'm not hungry. I'm going to bed," he announced, retreating from the room before his family could protest.

That night he had vivid dreams.

The first one began as a memory and ended as a nightmare.

Danny was five, sprinting down the hallway, laughing. _Gotta hide, gotta hide,_ he was thinking. Loud, heavy footsteps close behind. _Gonna getcha, little ghost! _Dad's voice bellowed down the hallway like a dragon roar. Danny cackled with laughter, stumbling down the basement steps into the lab. _Can't catch me, ghost hunter! _He dove under the work bench, peeking out as his dad reached the lab. _Can't hide from me, evil specter! I'm gonna find ya.. I'm gonna getcha.. _Danny bit back a laugh as Dad flipped over tables, tossing aside weapons and tools, throwing up papers and more papers. His face was suddenly in front of Danny's. _Found you, ghost. _Dragging Danny out from under the bench, laughing all the way. _Oh no! Don't dissect me! _he cried through his laughter. _Noo! _Dad was still dragging him by the leg, dragging him back to the work table- _no, no, no! _Danny's laughter died as his Dad strapped his wrists down, a dark look on his face. _Dad no- _He was raising a massive scalpel, almost comically huge, like a machete- _Dad NO! NO!_

The dream twisted and changed. He saw blinding green light. He felt it all through his body. It was so painful that his brain tried to wake him up; he realized he was dreaming, but still he couldn't awaken. He could feel his eyelids in the waking world but couldn't open them.

He was standing at the edge of a black canyon. At the bottom was a flowing river of light. Above him in the sky stretched the arm of the Milky Way, expansive and clear and distinct in its beauty. He reached his arm out to touch the sky and it rippled away. And the ground disappeared below him – he was falling, falling, diving, the liquid light below was rushing up to meet him. It was like dry ice, and he felt his nerve endings freezing over. He gasped for breath and it came in as ice and froze his lungs solid –

Danny woke up thrashing in his bed, gasping for air. He breathed out heavily and in the dim light he could _see _his breath. It was a sharp cold feeling clawing out of his throat. He shivered. Trying to stand up, he ended up falling out of bed to his hands and knees. The ice had settled in his body. Freezing him slowly from his heart outward to the tips of his fingers and toes. He was so cold. So cold. Maybe he was at last dying, from whatever the accident had done to him.

Closing his eyes, he decided to let it happen. He supposed if he was going to die then that was that, and he wouldn't fight it.

There was a sudden flash of even more intense cold in his chest, a sudden flash of light seen through his closed eyelids. Danny wondered semidetached if it was the proverbial 'light in the tunnel.'

He opened his eyes then, determined not to miss the once-in-a-lifetime experience of dying. And he saw that he was very much still in his room, and there was an _actual_ light – fluorescent blue light – and it was coming from _him._ His eyes followed the ring of light where it began at his chest and watched in disassociated wonder as it split slowly and spread across his body, leaving him almost numb where it passed over. When it was all over he leaned back against his bed, staring down at his hands in shock. Where his skin had been he saw white gloves.

But.. how? Was.. was he dreaming?

His blue pajamas were gone and he was wearing a black jumpsuit, white boots, white belt. Tucker's voice echoed in his memory – _You looked like a photonegative copy of yourself. _Tentatively, he tugged on the fingers of his left glove and pulled it off. It lingered for a moment in his hand before evaporating into the dark like mist.

With morbid curiosity he forced himself to stand and move toward the light switch by his bedroom door. He almost didn't want to see, but he knew it was important that he did.

Yellow light flooded the room, and when he turned slowly toward the mirror on his walls he was greeted with the face of stranger. A stranger radiating with dim white light. Snow white hair, and glowing green eyes.

He was a ghost.

As he tried to swallow this, someone knocked on his door. "Danny?" he hear Jazz say quietly.

His heart dropped out of his chest. "Uh, don't come in!" he called out in a panic, utterly astonished to find that his voice still worked.

"Danny are you okay? I heard a banging noise.. Can I come in?"

"No! Go away!" he snapped, backing away against the far wall. What was he supposed to do now? _Oh hi Jazz, sorry, I've actually just died you see so this isn't a good time. _The realization of it washed over him. He was _dead. _He was a _ghost. _He had essentially just become the very thing his parents hated most in the entire world. The irony of it threatened to strangle him.

He was hit by a crippling wave of longing, a desperate crushing wish to be human again.

And just like that, the miracle happened. The ring of blue light came back. Danny's eyes widened in disbelief as he felt it surround him in its energy. It washed over him again. This time, instead of flooding him with cold, it seemed to sap it right out of him, leaving a wake of warmth behind it. It felt like the rush of blood returning to his legs after they had fallen asleep.

The experience was so completely disarming that he slid down the wall and he collapsed to the floor.

At this point Jazz opened his door and found him there, clutching his arms around his knees, hyperventilating like he'd just run a marathon.

She gasped and rushed forward, half-carrying him back to his bed. He assured her it was only a nightmare but it didn't erase the worried look from her face. He wanted to be angry at her for finding him like that but it was difficult to be mad at Jazz when she cared about him so openly.

Danny laid awake for the rest of the night, focusing on the beating of his heart and trying to believe that he was still alive. He was staring at his dark ceiling, watching with curiosity as it occasionally flashed green. Sometime around four in the morning it dawned on him that the green flashes of light were coming from his own eyes.

The next morning over breakfast his parents babbled about ghosts, as per usual, and Danny had to fight the overwhelming urge to throw up.

As expected, Tucker and Sam where at his house the minute school let out. When they came into his room, Danny was laying on his bed staring at the ceiling.

"How are you feeling?" Tucker asked. They were both staring down at him uncertainly.

"Half dead," Danny said emotionlessly, not wanting to meet their eyes.

"That's not funny Danny," Sam replied.

"No, I really feel half dead. I think I might _actually_ _be_ only half alive." He knew they wouldn't believe it until he showed them, so he moved to the edge of his bed and stood, taking in a deep breath. "Just… just watch." He'd been doing this over and over and over and over again, all day long. Just to make sure he wasn't crazy. Just to make sure he could still become human as easily as he could become a ghost.

He looked away as he triggered the ring of blue light. He didn't want to see his friends' expressions while they watched. It came quite easily now. All Danny had to do was focus on the cold seeping feeling which pulsed dully, constantly, in his chest like a heartbeat.

The light washed over him, leaving that tingling numb sensation and his dark jumpsuit. The glove he'd removed the first time had regenerated the next time he'd transformed. Repeated experiments with removal of his boots, and the entire jumpsuit, had proved that this would occur every time.

When it was over he forced to raise his glowing eyes to look at Sam and Tucker. He didn't know what he expected to see on their faces. Maybe screams. Fear. Rejection. Horror. Part of him _wanted_ them to run away, to confirm his own suspicion that he'd become some sort of monster. He knew somehow that when they ran away he wouldn't be seeing them again, and he was prepared for that.

But Tucker and Sam did none of those things.

Instead, they broke out into broad smiles.

Tucker spoke first. "Man, that is S_o. Cool."_

"I knew we didn't hallucinate that," Sam said triumphantly.

Danny gaped at them. Did they not understand how serious this was?

Sam's smile fell a little. "You can change back though.. right?"

"Of course he can," Tucker said confidently. "Just like before, in the lab. Right Danny?"

Danny frowned. "Yeah, I can." He triggered the transformation again and felt the warmth spread through his limbs as he became human again.

Tucker and Sam both let out low whistles.

"This is serious you guys!" Did they not understand that he was _half dead?_

Tucker shrugged. "Yeah it's serious, but it's also wicked awesome."

"This is _not_ awesome," Danny snapped. "I'm like, half ghost!"

"I think that's pretty cool," Sam said.

"No, it really isn't," Danny fumed. "My parents are GHOST HUNTERS you guys. Ghost. Hunters. Emphasis on the _hunt _part."

"They don't have to find out," Tucker said quickly. "They haven't realized it so far, right?"

"This can just be a secret between the three of us," Sam piped in.

"I don't know how I could possibly keep this a secret."

"Well you control it don't you?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah but.. I keep disappearing at random moments. But I haven't been floating up accidentally anymore at least."

"Maybe you can learn to control it," Sam offered excitedly.

"Maybe," Danny replied with doubt. "It's not as easy as it sounds."

"Well we'll help you!" Tucker insisted.

Danny couldn't help be baffled at his friends' enthusiasm. They looked for all the world like Danny had just shown them a new videogame, and they were excited to test it out.

He didn't know what to say. He was sure they would have bailed the instant they found out he wasn't even fully human anymore. Anyone else in the world would have. He'd been preparing himself all day for the inevitable shock of losing his two closest friends.

Looking at their eager faces now, he wanted to hit himself for ever doubting them.

* * *

There will be more chapters, but I dunno when. Stay tuned ;)


	3. Surprises

**Chapter Three: Surprises**

x - x - x

When he found out he could fly – and not just float, _really fly – _that was the first inkling Danny had that something good may have come of this mess.

For the first few days he lost track of the number of times he had to grab onto the couch or the chair or the countertop to steady his balance, hoping his parents didn't realize his feet had just lifted a few inches off the floor.

Soon enough those incidents had nearly stopped. All it took was a little conscious effort. But it didn't mean he stopped floating. It just meant the floating was only happening when he was in ghost form.

So far he hadn't spent more than a few minutes at a time as a ghost. When he was in ghost form it was exceedingly difficult not to fall through the floor into the kitchen, or accidentally float sideways out the side of his house. Besides that, it made him nervous. What if he couldn't change back to human? That thought alone always stopped him cold. So he always did, just to make sure he could. But he knew if he was going to live with this then he was going to have to get to know this new side of himself.

So he on the fourth day he locked his door and went ghost. And found that it took more concentration to keep his feet on the ground than it did to float through the air. It wasn't like defying gravity, it was as if gravity ceased to exist when he was in ghost form. He couldn't feel the pull of it on him at all. Trying to stand on the ground was like trying to lean up against a cloud – it was like attempting to follow physics that no longer applied to him.

In the beginning it was impossible to control. His center of balance was nonexistent. If he leaned over forward he would go tumbling ten feet too far and end up smacking the wall, or else accidentally phasing through it. The phasing into intangibility, as he came to think of it, was arguably the easiest ghost power to learn to harness. After a few days of practice he could surge the intangibility throughout his entire body at will if he focused hard enough. Though he sorely wished it was that easy to stop doing it accidentally. He had at least ten moments of panic a day where, as a human, a body part disappeared and his heart fluttered madly in his chest while he willed in back into existence. It was nothing short of a miracle that his family had yet to catch him in the act.

The flying, meanwhile, was entirely the opposite of this. He stopped the accidental floating while human easily; in fact it soon became almost impossible to float while he was in human form. Maybe Tucker was right, maybe he _was _stabilizing. Regardless, in ghost form it was incredibly difficult to master flying.

But the _learning_ to fly, it was sort of what grounded him (no pun intended) in the whole scary mess of becoming half a ghost. While it was hard to see the bright side in most of the powers, it was impossible to see the _downside_ to flying. He became almost single-minded in his desperate want to control it. It became his silver lining.

"You just need to practice outside your bedroom," Sam insisted on Sunday evening, seven days after his accident. "Who could learn to fly in a space this small?"

"Sam's right," Tucker nodded. "Baby bird's gotta leave the nest if it wants to fly, dude."

"If you compare me to a baby bird one more time I will wring your neck, Tucker." If Danny had a nickel for every bird-related joke that Tucker had spewed over the past week, he would buy Tucker the latest model of his preferred line of PDA and then smash it over his head.

Tucker just snickered. He was sitting on the floor against Danny's dresser, only half paying attention; most of his attention span was currently mashing buttons on some arcade-style game on his PDA.

"Oh come on, Danny." Sam was sprawled out stomach-down on his bed, leaning on her hands and kicking her legs back and forth. "You haven't left the house in a week. I'm surprised you don't have bedsores. Why don't you let us take you out for a while?"

"My parents think I'm still suffering massive shock. I don't know if they'd let me set foot outside."

"They think that because you only leave your room to eat and make friends with the bathroom," Tucker added, still not looking up from his game.

"Yeah, well you'd hole up in your room too if your hands kept disappearing every time your parents shouted the word _ghosts – _which, by the way, is usually in the same sentence as the words "dissect" or "kill" or "disintegrate" or "molecule by molecule!" He did his best impression of his Dad's boomingly eager hunting voice. Somehow, joking about it made it slightly less nauseating.

Sam crossed her arms, unmoved. "We'll convince them to let you out, Danny. You're coming to school tomorrow anyway, so you might as well get reacquainted with the outside world."

Danny paled at the thought of school. What was he going to do if he accidentally disappeared during class? It was happening less often, but every time something stressful occurred was typically when his limbs decided to vanish without his permission. And he really couldn't think of anything more stressful than going to school and pretending like everything was fine and dandy. Pretending that he was as human as his classmates.

"...I still don't know about going to school tomorrow."

Sam glared. "You're coming to school if I have to drag you there myself Danny. You can't hide in here forever!"

Tucker finally paused his game, tucking it away into his pocket. "Which is why we should go out tonight. I think you need it bro. Plus, I just _really _want to see you fly okay?"

Danny did too. And he knew they knew it. They knew him _too_ well, really. Danny was aware they were only using the 'flying practice' thing as an excuse to lure him from the house. To his annoyance, it worked. "Yeah," he found himself saying. "As much as I hate to say it, you're right. I'll come with you."

"I'm always right, dude."

Danny rolled his eyes, scooted to the edge of his bed, and stood. But as he did so he suddenly shivered. A harsh cold feeling rose up in his throat like bile, and he shuddered out a frosty breath of air. As it happened, he felt a strange spark of awareness. It was like a swift shot of intuition, like guessing the plot twist in a movie mere seconds before it happened. The misty breath dissipated but the otherworldly feeling remained, like a nagging humming in the back of his mind.

"Um, Danny? Did I just see your breath?" Tucker was staring at him blankly. "Because it feels like it's eighty degrees in here to me. Am I missing something?"

The hairs on the back of his neck were prickling. "Uhh.. guys? Something's wrong." His eyes scanned the room slowly. He did not know what he was looking for. But he knew without a doubt that they were no longer alone.

"What?" Sam sat up quickly in alarm. "Danny what is it?"

A ragged hissing noise filled the room, and a green glow cast shadows around his bedroom as something began to rise up through the center Danny's bed. Sam backed away from it, falling off the other side of the bed as two gleaming yellow eyes and a row of dripping teeth emerged through Danny's mattress.

"G-g- _ghost!"_ Tucker shouted, lurching to his feet and hitting his head on the top drawer of Danny's dresser.

The ghost's yellow eyes looked at them hungry, and several thick green tentacles emerged around its bulbous head, reaching for the closest person – Sam.

Danny lunged around the side of his bed to yank on Sam's arm, dragging her on her back across the room. The ghost was undeterred. It simply changed its target to the next nearest object – Tucker, who was clutching his head in pain where he had smacked it on the open drawer.

Tucker yelped as the ghost closed its reaching tentacles around his torso. The thing looked like a floating dripping octopus. It was disgusting. Danny felt almost frozen in time as he made eye contact with it again. Everything was happening so quickly and yet it felt like slow motion. The three of them had never seen a ghost before, besides Danny. They had grown used to Danny's own ghostly appearance by now, but this was another thing entirely. _Where did it come from? _he wondered wildly, even as his brain supplied the obvious answer.

But he didn't have time to consider and debate about the implications of all this. He was already closing the gap between himself and Tucker, closing his hands around the tentacles that were tightening around Tucker's face. The ghost hissed again, spewing flecks of ectoplasmic drool at Danny's face. Such a creepy sound. It released half its tentacles from Tucker and drew Danny into join his best friend in being strangled to death.

Danny felt the breath knocked out of his lungs as the ghost squeezed, felt his throat being constricted and he let out a strangled gasp as Sam picked up his computer chair and hurled it at the globular head of the glowing octopus. The ghost simply went intangible and the chair flew through it, crashing noisily into Danny's dresser.

_Oh, DUH! _He actually smiled as he triggered his transformation, thinking that if ghosts could feel surprised then this ecto-pus thing was about to get the shock of a lifetime. A bright flash and then Danny was a ghost, and the choking feeling vanished as he channeled his energy into going intangible. He phased out of the ghost's grasp easily, and then grabbed it from behind, ripping it away from Tucker. His friend fell to the ground, gasped and clutching at his throat. Danny felt a fleeting rush of surprise at how much lighter the ghost felt when he was in ghost form as opposed to human. Did being a ghost make him stronger? Was this another one of those physics-don't-apply things, like with the gravity?

The ghost hissed as Danny hauled it overhand across the room by its tentacles.

Danny was beginning to panic now. The crashing noises meant his parents would surely be rushing in here at any moment. His door was locked but that would only stop them for so long. He needed to get this ghost _out _of here, or who knows what would happen?

The thing wheeled about and turned back to rush him again, and Tucker and Sam had moved behind him. He didn't know if they had done it consciously, but he felt much better knowing that he was standing between them and the attacker. He was not going to let it get its hands –uh, tentacles – on them again. Screw that. But how would he protect them? He couldn't make them intangible like he could make himself. What to do? _What to do?_

As it flew towards them he raised his hands out defensively, though he knew it was a lousy, lousy shield. The ecto-pus collided head on with him, wrapping its tentacles around his outstretched arms, it's cavernous hissing mouth reaching for his face over his hands. Glowing ectoplasm dripped from his teeth onto his white gloves.

"Okay now this is just gross," he said faintly, as though this was all a joke and someone was going to say "April fools" at any moment. It's yellow catlike eyes leered at him and he felt a strong wave of déjà vu.

The energy in his chest boiled over, he could feel it responding to his fear and anger like a sort of ghostly adrenaline rush. He found that the energy was his to control, and with great concentration he willed it into his arms, sending the surging heat down his limbs to his hands. He felt it erupt out of his palms against the skin of the ghost. A burst of green light, and the ghost was hissing madly, this time in pain as it released him and flew backwards, smoking slightly. It glaring at the three of them maliciously from the other side of the room, its tentacles flailing in the air.

The pounding on his bedroom door finally came. "Danny?" his mom called. "What are you three doing in there?"

"Nothing, Mrs. Fenton!" Sam called back, the only one with enough wits about her to respond.

"We heard a crash, son," came Dad's voice. "Are you alright? Is it a _ghost?" _

"Just rearranging furniture!" Sam answered hysterically. "Everything's fine!"

Danny was looking down at his hands in wonder, which were still green with phosphorescence. The same kind of neon green glow that the ecto-pus ghost had been dripping. There was more energy exploding in them; he could feel it there, a strange potential. He turned his hands on the ghost and let another blast fly. The thing squealed, and without giving him another glance it disappeared through his bedroom wall, to the outside of his house. Danny ran forward, leaned his head through his wall intangibly, scanning the dark street for the ghost. He spotted it in the sky above, flying swiftly away.

As he pulled his head back in he could hear his parents trying to bust in. He changed back to human in a panic, looking around at the mess that had become of his furniture.

They burst through the door, breaking his lock. They both had ghost weapons raised, giant ecto-guns poised on their shoulders. It happened a lot – his parents tended to think every loud noise was a ghost. Danny used to roll his eyes at their overreactions. But now staring down the barrel of the gun made him feel very uneasy.

"Where's the ghost? I'll give him the old one-two!" Dad was shouting.

"No ghosts here!" Tucker said, a little too quickly. Danny stood with his back to the wall, hoping his body was enough to cover the smoking burn mark where he had plowed the ghost with a blast of ectoplasm – if that's what it had been that had come out of his hands, and he had a feeling it was.

His mom had already lowered her gun and was glaring at Danny. "Look at this mess you've made, Danny! What has gotten into you?"

"I- sorry, mom."

"Tucker and Sam, I think it's time you two go home. Danny needs to rest and relax if he's going to school tomorrow."

His friends looked at him uneasily, before slumping their shoulders and acquiescing reluctantly.

"We'll talk about this later, young man," Mom warned as she followed Tucker and Sam out of his room.

Dad lingered, eyeing Danny. "You sure there wasn't a ghost?" he said hopefully. "I really wanted to try out this new blaster." He pouted, looking so put out that Danny almost felt bad for him. Almost.

"Definitely no ghosts, Dad."

"One of these days, I'll catch one," he muttered under his breath as he left Danny's bedroom.

The first day back at school was unimaginable torture.

Everyone seemed to know Danny had been in some kind of terrible accident. The students parted like water as he walked down the halls, eyeing him with a mixture of pity and fascination. His teachers were all treating him like a fragile child, talking to him in soft voices like he would go into a panic if they spoke too loudly. They all gave him these annoying pitying looks, and he wondered with irritation if his parents had spoken with his teachers beforehand, telling them he was suffering from shock. He wished he hadn't needed to play up the 'shock' thing so much to hide the real problem.

The only good thing was that the bullying seemed to be put on hold. He was used to being Dash's favorite punching bag, but the jock had completely ignored him so far. At least _something_ good was coming out of the whole 'fragile breakable kid' charade. Somehow he didn't think it would last long though.

Danny, Tucker, and Sam sat alone at a table in the cafeteria. Danny was pushing the brown mush on his plate around with his spoon, unwilling to eat it. He wasn't even sure which planet the food was supposed to be from let alone which food group. It was a wonder it wasn't melting his spoon.

"Are you sure it came from the portal?" Sam was asking.

"Well where else would it have come from?" Danny replied.

"I guess it just makes me worried, that there might be _more_ where that came from."

"Yeah, there probably is," he said, with a resigned shrug. Danny had checked on the ghost portal that morning, and the doors had been tightly secured. But he was still convinced it was where the ghost had come from.

His parents had said the portal was a kind of window to the plane of ghosts, but they also said they didn't know everything about it. Who knew? Maybe ghosts could travel through it into their world. He would have laughed at that a week ago, but enough impossible things had happened to him this past week that he was starting to believe that anything could happen.

"Shouldn't we.. I dunno, tell your parents or something?" Tucker wondered.

"I don't know. What would I even tell them? Hey, I think ghosts might be escaping from your portal into our world?"

Tucker shrugged. "Something like that. They _are _ghost hunters after all."

"Oh yeah, I forgot," Danny sneered sarcastically. "Look, the last thing I need is them getting all protective and following me around with ghost hunting weapons."

"I think you handled that ghost just fine by yourself," Sam said nonchalantly, taking a bite out of her salad. "That thing you did with your hands? That was crazy! And I still think we shouldn't tell your parents."

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, slightly taken aback by the unexpected praise. "It was nothing, really," he mumbled. "But I don't know if I can keep all this a secret from them for long, guys. What if more ghosts get out? What if they attack me again? That one ghost got away, and I have a feeling it's not the last we'll be seeing of it. I feel like this is all getting out of hand. Maybe keeping it a secret from my parents isn't such a good idea."

"Well it's your secret, dude," Tucker replied. He took a huge bite out of his own pile of mush and spoke through a full mouth. "If you wanna tell them it's on you."

Sam screwed up her face in disgust. "Chew with your mouth closed. What are you, an animal?"

Danny frowned. He didn't know _what _he wanted to do.

When school finally let out it was a massive relief. Somehow he already had homework to do, but he supposed he should be grateful that his teachers had at least let him out of the work he'd missed while he was out of commission. But for now, the three friends were on their way to the thing they'd been looking forward to all day long. The persistent worries about the loose ecto-pus, his endless internal debate on whether he should spill to his parents, his curiosity and stress over the Ghost Portal, his annoyance with school and all its inhabitants – all of that stayed on the steps of Casper High as Danny and his friends left the school behind them. Danny was almost giddy with excitement.

Today, he was going to learn how to fly.


End file.
